OLA S1 Electric Scooter Launch: Our Thoughts

Join us in analyzing the OLA S1 Electric Scooter launch event. In this article and video we go through the OLA scooter launch event and find, what impressed us and what concerned us. 

Stop buying petrol scooters

It was fantastic to see Bhavish Aggarwal standing on top of the OLA Future factory and a drone capturing the scene showing the scale of the building. OLA is ushering in Industry 4.0 with smart manufacturing that focuses heavily on  interconnectivity, automation, machine learning, and real-time data.
The factory will make 10 million electric scooters a year, which is the kind of scale we have never seen in the Indian two wheeler industry and we are excited that this factory will churn out electric two wheelers and not dirty pollution causing oil guzzlers.

20 million two wheelers are sold each year and Bhavish says selling these many petrol scooters is unsustainable. For the first time there is awareness being made that India cannot keep using petrol two wheelers. No one in the two wheeler industry nor media speaks about pollution caused by petrol two wheelers. It was very refreshing to listen to Bhavish denouncing dirty, noisy pollution scooters, something we at PluginIndia have been doing for many years.
We hope this presentation by Bhavish would convince many people to quit their oil habit and stop blindly buying pollution scooters.

Design

OLA Electric Scooter - Ola S1 Summary
Riding Range	121 Km
Top Speed	90 Kmph
Kerb Weight	121 kg
Battery charging time	5 Hrs
Rated Power	5500 W
Seat Height	792 mm

Bhavish then shows the OLA S1, where a lady in black jacket and gloves  zooms in the OLA Scooter which reaches a speed of 115 kmph! We then are inside the future factory where we see an all lady team assembling the

OLA S1. What's with the feminism here? Was this faked? You guys tell me :)
Bhavish speaks about the Design of the S1. The design has not changed since the Etergo app scooter was revealed back in 2018 by the Netherlands based Etergo team which OLA purchased in 2020. The scooter has a groundbreaking design architecture because in a normal scooter there is a tube frame as part of its chassis that takes up a lot of space. The OLA S1 uses a monocoque  frame, where even the outside section also is part of the frame, which makes it stronger. This monocoque design enables you to place the battery in the footboard, which gives a lot of storage space both under the seat and a large glove compartment. Of Course Bhavish did not speak about the technical merits of the monocoque design and just spoke about the alien eye headlights, colors and boot space.
OLA S1 is an electric scooter available at a starting price of Rs. 97,703 in India. It is available in only 1 variant and 5 colours. OLA S1 generates 5500 W power from its motor. With both front and rear disc brakes, OLA S1 comes up with combined braking system of both wheels.

Ola Electric has launched its new electric scooter, the S1 in the Indian market. The Ola electric scooter will come in two variants, Ola S1 and Ola S1 Pro.

Both variants of the Ola Electric scooter feature a similar design that comprises a compact twin-pod headlight with an LED DRL ring, apron-mounted sleek LED indicators, a body-coloured front fender, curvy side panels, a sleek LED taillight, an external charging point at the back, and a split-style pillion grabrail. The Ola Electric scooter features a 36-litre under-seat storage that can accommodate two open-face helmets. The colour palette for the base model includes five options while the Pro variant is available in 10 choices.

Mechanical specifications on both scooters include an electric motor that produces a peak output of 8.5kW and maximum torque of 58Nm. The battery capacity for the base variant and the Pro model stands at 2.98kW and 3.97kW, respectively. In terms of performance, the Ola S1 boasts a top speed of 90kmph and a range of 121km per charge. The Ola S1 Pro, on the other hand, can achieve a top speed of 115kmph and features a range of 181km per charge.

Standard features on both models include proximity lock/unlock, remote boot lock, call alert, message alert, infotainment, side-stand alert, anti-theft alert, geo fencing, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, onboard navigation, limp home mode, reverse mode, get home mode, take-me-home lights, find my scooter, HMI moods with sound, electronic steering lock, HMI brightness adjuster, welcome screen, OTA updates, manual SOS, and predictive maintenance. The Pro variant further benefits from hill hold system, cruise control, and voice assist. The Ola S1 version uses two riding modes (Normal and Sport) while the Ola S1 Pro variant packs three (Normal, Sport, and Hyper).
Nor did he speak about the design architecture which enabled the removable banana shaped battery. The Etergo team showed us back in 2018, how easy it was to remove and carry the banana shaped battery. During the reveal, where Bhavish was standing, those batteries were displayed on the shelves and yet OLA have not made them removable in the production version. Why did they opt for a fixed battery design? Maybe OLA wanted to be seen as being different? Or they anticipated issues with careless use, battery pack drops etc? We will never know, until we speak to them. This decision to have a fixed battery has disappointed many in the community and out of the lakh or so bookings, we estimate 50-60000 people will switch to Simple Energy, PURE or other brands which offer removable batteries.